Do employability skills really matter in the UK graduate labour market? the case of business and management graduates

Wilton, Nick

Abstract

Two dominant rationales are offered by UK policymakers for the continued expansion of higher education: to service the high-skill labour requirements of a knowledge economy, and to increase educational and employment opportunities for under-represented groups. The discourse of employability connects these two rationales in a simplistic manner. Individual employability is described as both the means by which to obtain and maintain high-quality employment and to eradicate the social reproduction of inequality. However, evidence drawn from a survey of graduate careers suggests that for a cohort of recent business and management graduates, the relationship between employability and employment is far from straightforward.The data suggest that traditional labour market disadvantage still appears to be an impediment to achievement, regardless of the extent to which graduates develop employability skills during their undergraduate studies. © 2011 The Author(s).

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: May 13, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 16, 2016
• Journal: Work, Employment and Society
• Print ISSN: 0950-0170
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8722
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 85-100
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017010389244
• Keywords: diversity, employability, graduates, higher education, labour market, skills
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/965091
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0950017010389244
• Contract Date: Jul 16, 2016